Sponge city pilot construction of our city passed provincial acceptance

From: Lianyungang Daily Updated: 2024-03-27 09:02

Through on-site visits to Yudai River area and Xuwei core area in Haizhou, reviewing materials, listening to reports, and conducting comprehensive evaluations, the expert group of the Provincial Department of Housing and Urban Rural Development believes that our city possesses a sound pilot construction mechanism for sponge cities with close cooperation among departments and strong institutional implementation. The quality of the pilot project construction is good, and the pilot area has achieved sponge city operation results. All indicators are better than the requirements of the implementation plan, which also provides replicable and promotable experience for other areas of our city and sister cities to further promote this work. The expert group unanimously recognized that the construction of our city's provincial-level sponge pilot city had passed the acceptance inspection.

Our city's sponge city pilot area is divided into Yudai River Sponge City Pilot Area and the Core Area of Xuwei New District. Among them, Yudai River Sponge City Pilot Area covers an area of 3.9 square kilometers, and the Sponge City Zone of Xuwei New District’s Core Area covers an area of 9.2 square kilometers. Since being approved as a provincial pilot city for sponge city construction in 2017, the municipal Party committee and the municipal government have attached great importance to this work. The Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban Rural Development and relevant functional departments have worked together to tackle the problem, comprehensively promoting the construction of pilot sponge city from the respects of planning, policy, technology, projects and engineering construction.

After exploration and practice, our city has compared various tasks and indicators of pilot cities, and picked up a total of 42 new and renovation pilot projects in the pilot area based on the principle of "overall planning and classified construction", including buildings and housing estates, roads and squares, parks and green space as well as river and water systems. Among them, there are 13 newly-built and reconstructed projects for buildings and housing estates, 13 road and square projects, 10 parks and green space projects, 3 river and water system projects as well as 3 other projects. At present, all 42 pilot projects in the pilot area have been completed with high quality. Through sponge transformation, the rainwater and flood management in the corresponding area of Yudai River has been significantly improved. Among them, the flow inside Cherry Blossom Garden, Yingzhou Park and the surrounding land mass can be effectively controlled, and the visual effect of green plants and Landscape Lake in the park has been qualitatively improved. A gradual change from wetland transition zone, protective forest to ecological grassland and from landscape forest to rainwater pond has taken shape in the core area of Xuwei New District. The periphery of the green space has become a leisure and fitness paradise for residents in the New District.

According to the 29 assessment and evaluation rules for the pilot work of sponge city construction issued by the Provincial Department of Housing and Urban Rural Development, our city has also taken various measures such as establishing a sponge control process, formulating and issuing various policies and technical standards, improving project supervision and assessment mechanisms, strengthening technical services, and establishing monitoring and project control platforms. Currently, a sponge city construction model with local characteristics has been formed, which will effectively promote the sustainable and long-term development of local sponge city construction. In addition, our city actively promotes and practices the concept of sponge cities, systematically manages the urban water environment, optimizes the natural hydrological and ecological pattern, continuously improves the city's flood control and drainage capacity, realizes the natural migration of water in corresponding areas, and passes multiple seasonal urban rain and flood tests. It is worth mentioning that our city has also issued a series of normative documents related to the operation and maintenance guidelines of sponge cities. According to the categories of parks, green space, roads and squares, river systems and building estates, the functional requirements for "infiltration, detention, storage, purification, utilization and drainage" are distinguished. Combined with the actual situation of pocket park system construction and urban renewal, the construction of "embedded" sponge facilities is carried out.

It is expected that by 2025, 50% of the urban built-up areas will meet the requirements for sponge city construction, and urban residents will have a more intuitive and systematic perception of "sponge city".